Weird history behind Memorial Day in the States.

I bring it up because it's on 7 June,. Last week there was a Memorial Day ceremony in Hudson Ohio: middle America and home of John Brown (a-mouldering in his grave).

A decorated veteran had his microphone cut off when he mentioned slaves may have started Memorial Day.



Washington Post: Memorial Day was political from the beginning. Here’s how the holiday was shaped by race and the Civil War.

The holiday was political at its founding and could be understood as political again

This Memorial Day, many Americans are likely to be barbecuing, enjoying time with family and friends after the separations of the pandemic, or taking advantage of sales. A 2019 Economist-YouGov poll found that only 17 percent of Americans planned to do activities related to the official meaning of the federal holiday — commemorating troops killed in U.S. military conflicts — such as attending parades or memorial services or visiting gravesites.

Few Americans know the holiday’s origins in the Civil War, which are tied to the politics of race, emancipation and power. Over time, the holiday has become a homogenized celebration of patriotism emphasizing American troops’ valor, shopping and the unofficial kickoff of summer. Here’s what you probably didn’t already know.
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One possible “first” observance of the holiday was the ceremony organized by the recently freed Black community of Charleston, S.C., in 1865. As historian David Blight documents, Black Charlestonians organized a burial of Union prisoners of war who had died in a Confederate war prison. They built an enclosure for the burial ground, established rows of graves and set an archway over the entrance gate inscribed “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Ten thousand people attended, mostly formerly enslaved people. They sang hymns and the national anthem, read Bible verses and decorated graves with flowers, followed by speeches, picnics and Union troop marches that included Black units. As Blight wrote, Black Americans who celebrated Memorial Day “converted Confederate ruin into their own festival of freedom.” Over time, some of that celebration of emancipation may have been subsumed by Juneteenth, the anniversary of slavery’s end in the United States.
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